The Schwartz Cloud Report

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra To Depart

The man who helped move the federal government to the cloud is moving on.

Vivek Kundra, the nation's first federal CIO, is taking a fellowship at Harvard University, where he will serve as a joint fellow at the Kennedy School and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the White House announced today.

Not only was Kundra responsible for moving the federal government to the cloud, but he also oversaw a massive datacenter consolidation effort. Kundra instituted a "cloud-first" policy earlier this year, saying 25 percent of the government's IT budget would be devoted to the cloud.

Overall, his efforts saved the government $3 billion in IT expenditures, said Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew in a blog post.

"He has cracked down on wasteful IT spending, saved $3 billion in taxpayer dollars; moved the government to the cloud; strengthened the cyber security posture of the nation while making it more open, transparent and participatory," Lew wrote.

Kundra will depart in August. No replacement has been named at this point, though Lew promised a "smooth transition."

Microsoft updated an August security advisory this week to urge organizations using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol in supported Windows systems to implement some configuration changes manually.